


In My Restless Dreams

by ACuckoo



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2436569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACuckoo/pseuds/ACuckoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hong Kong and Iceland have to deal with some of their darkest fears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In My Restless Dreams...

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is Emil's story! Hyung Soo and Yong Soo are North Korea and South Korea in case anyone had trouble distinguishing that.

Emil knew how to defend himself. His loving boyfriend had shown him how. And even if he couldn’t defend himself, Jia-Long would be right there to keep him safe. If Jia-Long wasn’t around, then he had his brothers. There was never a time he needed to feel worried or threatened. Nothing in this world could hurt him. Nothing on this earth could ever inflict pain on him and not suffer the consequences. It was simply impossible.

But these people; his boyfriend, his brothers, his friends… They couldn’t protect him from the one thing he feared the most.

In his restless dreams he saw that figure. He saw the two of them, the twins, fighting bravely and desperately for their countries. This was a time that Emil knew little about. Perhaps it was time to brush up on his Korean history, but he was afraid of what he would find. From what he had been told… Well, what he had been told wouldn’t be in the history books. He could learn about the war. He could learn about the division of the peninsula. He could learn about the military tactics. He could learn all these things, but only the twins could tell him what truly happened. Only they knew the truth, and for some reason they had told Emil the truth. Perhaps it was Emil’s morbid curiosity, but he needed to know. He pushed Hyung Soo and Yong Soo to continue their terrifying tale, and in doing so he found out the truth.

And now it haunted him.

His dreams were haunted by Yong Soo’s mangled body. They were haunted by Hyung Soo’s maniacal laughter. Those sharp teeth of his pierced Emil’s body and made him wake from his disturbing sleep. Emil was grateful, though. He didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t want to see the blood drip from Hyung Soo’s fangs or flow from Yong Soo’s body.  
  
He didn’t ever want to see it again.  
  
He tried to get the image out of his head. With a black pen he scribbled out the scene on a sheet of paper, transferring what in his mind onto the paper to trap it. He stared at his drawing, but it didn’t help him. Nothing helped.  
  
He needed Jia-Long.  
  
After a quick call to his boyfriend he found himself on a plane to Hong Kong. The moment they saw one another, Jia-Long knew something was wrong. He took Emil to his comfortable, small apartment and curled up with him in bed.  
  
“Baby, what’s wrong? What’s the matter?”  
  
Emil felt silly. He felt silly thinking that such a thing would bother him so much.  
  
“The ghost…” he whispered, taking his drawing out of his suitcase to show his boyfriend. Jia-Long looked at it with curiosity, though he set it aside to focus on Emil.  
  
“What is that a drawing of?”  
  
“Hyung Soo and Yong Soo.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Emil shook his head, pressing himself against his lover. “They told me a story last time we all hung out. They said… I mean… Hyung Soo told it really, but Yong Soo didn’t deny a word of it. I couldn’t help but believe it.”  
  
“Anything Hyung Soo says is a lie.”  
  
“I know, but…. Jia, they were talking about the division of the peninsula. Why would they lie about that?”  
  
“What did they tell you?”  
  
He felt so stupid. He felt like the moment the words would leave his mouth his boyfriend would just call him stupid and ignore him. But Jia-Long wasn’t like that. He wasn’t so cruel.  
  
“Hyung Soo….” Emil wiped his eyes, but the tears didn’t stop flowing as he spoke. “Hyung Soo said Yong Soo was a ghost.”  
  
“What? Are you serious? Emil….”  
  
“He said it! He said he killed Yong Soo when they were fighting, but he came back as a vengeful ghost. He said when he was reincarnated into the Yong Soo we know now the ghost of the original South Korea became upset and started to haunt him. The ghost haunts everyone who has a close connection to either Hyung Soo or Yong Soo.”  
  
“That’s not how reincarnation works, baby.”  
  
“I know, but….”  
  
Jia-Long gently kissed his lover’s forehead. He wanted to comfort his baby, but his concern was slowly turning to rage at the twins who would do this to Emil.  
  
“Hyung Soo said… He said….”  
  
“What did he say?”  
  
“He said… He ate Yong Soo.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“He said he ate him. He said he devoured him alive and the ghost is angry at the horrible way it died. And lately…. Lately I’ve been having these dreams about the whole thing. I can see them, Jia. I can see the twins fighting, and I can see Hyung Soo overcoming Yong Soo. I can see him taking him away to this remote and scary place and just… Eating him!”  
  
“Baby!” Jia-Long held Emil tightly as the other started sobbing. He could see how this was affecting his lover. He had never seen Emil so frightened before, and now he was sure he would kill the twins for what they did to him. Emil grabbed at his hair and rocked back and forth in Jia-Long’s strong arms, but for the first time ever, he didn’t feel safe in them.  
  
“It’s the ghost.” he said through his tears. “The ghost is making me have these dreams. Every night, Jia. Every night I see it. Every night I see Hyung Soo tear Yong Soo apart. I hear Yong Soo’s screams. I hear him beg for help. I hear him beg Hyung Soo to stop. He says ‘I’ll give you the south! Take it! Just stop! Stop eating me! Someone help!’ But he doesn’t! He doesn’t stop! He pulls out his eyes and bites at his chest and—“  
  
“Shhh… Shhh, baby. Shhh….” Emil was getting hysterical and it was all Jia-Long could do to keep him calm. He cooed at him and gently rubbed his hair.  
  
How he would kill the Koreas when he got a chance….  
  
“That didn’t happen, baby. We would have known. Don’t you think all of Asia would have found out if Yong Soo died? Even if it was true and he somehow came back reincarnated, he would have came back as a child. A baby. What they told you isn’t possible.”  
  
“How can you be so sure? Why am I having these vivid nightmares then? They’re so real. It has to be the ghost showing me what happened.”  
  
Jia-Long shook his head. “No. No, it’s not. Yong Soo didn’t die during that time. He never died.”  
  
“And what if Hyung Soo really did that to him? What if he somehow ate him, but Yong Soo managed to escape?”  
  
“Then he wouldn’t have died. He still wouldn’t be a ghost. These dreams of yours… I don’t know. The twins frightened you with their story and made you believe there was a ghost surrounding us, but there’s not. There never has been. It’s all in your head, baby. They scared you and they did a damn good job of it… But that’s all. You’re safe, Emil. You’re safe.”  
  
They didn’t sleep that night. They didn’t sleep the night after. They didn’t sleep that night after that or the night after that. Emil continued to have those nightmares and Jia-Long continued to comfort him and take care of him. He pushed away the thoughts of how he would destroy the twins in order to better care for his lover.  
Eventually, though, Emil’s dreams stopped. His nightmares stopped consuming him. The dreams didn’t wake him up in the middle of the night. He wasn’t a zombie in the day time because of how little sleep he was getting.  
  
“Your nightmares have stopped?” Jia-Long asked several days later. His boyfriend nodded, but still looked concerned.  
  
“You really don’t think there’s a ghost?”  
  
“No. I think the twins were trying to scare you. Yong Soo likes to play pranks and I suppose Hyung Soo shares that trait. I’ll kill them for picking you as a victim, but I promise you they were lying. Yong Soo never died. I’m sure he struggled during their battles, but he never died. And if at some point Hyung Soo managed to nearly eat him, well… That’s not something they ever talked about. It’s nobody’s business but theirs.”  
  
“I let my imagination get the better of me?”  
  
Emil was embarrassed. Jia-Long could easily tell that his baby felt stupid and ashamed, but he didn’t blame him. Fear was a strong emotion, and he knew how his lover felt about ghosts. It was very similar to the way he felt about darkness. This was the fault of the Korean twins, not Emil. Their talk of ghosts and cannibalism drove Emil nearly to the brink of insanity.  
  
He would never forgive them.  
  
“It’s okay, baby.” Jia-Long pulled him into a hug, happy that this was finally over. “We’ll get them back for this. Won’t it be fun?”  
  
For the first time since he arrived in Hong Kong, Emil let a small smile play across his lips. “Yeah. Real fun.”


	2. Devil's Night

Jia-Long didn’t consider himself a particularly unlucky guy. All he had to do was look outside the window at his beautiful country to know that he wasn’t unlucky in the least bit. As a plus he had the most amazing, beautiful, cute, sweet, loving, Icelandic boyfriend. Lucky was a word he would definitely use to describe himself. 

But not tonight. Tonight was the exception. 

He curled up in bed and closed his eyes as tightly as he could. If he closed his eyes, then he couldn’t see the dark. It made sense…. Right? 

Or rather he couldn’t see whatever the darkness held. It could have been anything from butterflies to rats to monsters from Chinese myths. The dark was no place for a person. People were beings of the light. Daytime was their time to step out of their homes and explore the world. Night was dangerous. Night was fun, yes, but dangerous as well. But it wasn’t the night that scared Jia-Long. 

It was simply the dark. 

The power had gone off in his chic apartment and hadn’t come back on for thirty minutes. By now his eyes were opening against his will. They slowly opened and he peered cautiously around his bedroom, but he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. Normally, there was never a time when his apartment wasn’t lit. Even if all the lights were out the bright neon signs from across the street would shine in through his window and cast dim green, pink, and red colors along his walls and floors. 

Today was different. 

Outside was just as dark as his apartment. Something must have happened to the power lines. As far as he could tell the power was out on his whole street and he had no idea when it would be coming back on. He nervously stood and shakily made his way to the bedroom door. He grabbed onto anything he could, but it didn’t help to calm his nerves. Each step was like walking deeper into an abyss. His heart pounded against his ribcage and he thought he could hear something behind him, though he didn’t dare turn around. The air grew thicker as he walked along and he began to find it difficult to breath. 

His apartment felt so different in the dark. He had never seen it like this before and he hoped to never see it like this again. A chill went down his spine as he did his best to ignore the unusual sounds he had never heard before. 

“Just got to get to it….” 

He talked to himself, using the technique someone had told him once to keep himself from losing his mind. His mind conjured up images of what could possibly be lurking in the dark and he wanted to curl up in the corner until this darkness disappeared. 

But there was one saving grace. There was something that he had that could save him from this nightmare. All he had to do was get to it.

So he powered on and trudged slowly through the darkness. It felt odd to be walking through his little apartment so slowly and carefully… Fearfully. He felt around as he made his way into what he believed was the kitchen. There it was. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. He heard the quiet whir of the device keeping itself cool. He needed it…. 

He made a mad dash, regretting it instantly as he slammed his knee on the kitchen table. He fell to the floor and stared at the ceiling as he held onto his knee. The images and shapes began to form again and he quickly closed his eyes, though that didn’t help much. He crawled onto a chair and grabbed it, the one thing that could rescue him. 

His laptop was the only thing that could run without a power source and the moment he opened it he felt himself relax as the screen cast a soft blue color in front of him. 

It wasn’t enough, though. He needed more. The laptop could only do so much for him. The laptop’s rays of light could only brighten his currently dark existence so much. There was one other thing he needed before he could relax completely. 

“Pick up….” 

Emil had said he would always keep Skype open in case he called. Now was the test. Jia-Long was nearly on the brink of tears as he looked at the shadows that were coming towards him and closing in on him. His laptop was hurting him more than helping him at this point, and he nearly screamed at Emil to pick up his Skype call. The shadows inched closer and closer; the space between him and them shrunk as he could feel their dark gazes upon him. His breathing quickened; his hands flew to his face as if that would protect him from the creatures of the dark. He was done for. He couldn’t control his fear. He couldn’t face it. He couldn’t be strong. He let himself succumb to the darkness as it overtook him and what was supposed to be his saving grace. 

“Jia?” 

Jia-Long’s head shot up as he heard the voice he had been so desperate for. The shadows dispersed and a wide smile grew on his face. 

“Emil!” 

“Jia, what’s the matter? Why are you crying?” 

“What?” 

Jia-Long touched his cheeks and felt a wetness there that he hadn’t felt before. He didn’t realize he had been crying, and he had no answer for Emil. 

“Jia? Sweetie…?” 

“U-ummm….” Jia-Long struggled to find the words to explain his situation to his lover. “Like… Umm… The-the power went out. It’s dark in here,” he said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. 

“Oh. I see.” 

“Yeah.” 

Emil just smiled and calmly blew his lover a kiss. “It’ll be alright, Jia. I’m here now. There’s nothing in the dark that wasn’t already there in the light.” 

“Nothing…?” 

And just like that, Jia-Long felt his body calm. His heartbeat slowed; his tears stopped falling; his legs and arms stopped shaking. Only a few seconds of talking to his baby and he felt more serene than he had the entire day. He felt silly for acting the way he did, for panicking over nothing. 

“That’s right. Nothing. Your plants are there. Your sink is there. Yours books are there. Your posters are there. Your bed is there. In fact, you should go to it. I’m not sure which room you’re in, but it’s definitely not your bedroom.” 

Jia-Long laughed as he picked up the computer and navigated to his bedroom with no problems. He stared at his computer, at the face of his lovely boyfriend and before he knew he it, he found himself in front of his comfortable bed. He changed into his pajamas and climbed under the covers, keeping the computer close to him as if Emil was actually there with him. 

“It’s around 5 PM in Iceland now, right?” 

“Yeah,” Emil said with a nod. “Which means it’s 1 AM in Hong Kong. You should try to get some sleep. You know I don’t like you being awake too late.” 

“You mean early.”

“Whatever you want to call it.” 

They both laughed with one another; the feeling seemed brand new to Jia-Long. He hadn’t been that scared in so long; he felt like someone who was just getting back into a normal routine after being away from home for years. The air in his cozy apartment didn’t feel heavy anymore. There were no monsters peering at him in the dark. There weren’t any noises coming from every direction. He could finally get back to living again. 

“You’ll stay with me as I fall asleep?” 

“Of course I will.” 

“What if the computer dies before I fall asleep?” 

“That won’t happen.” 

“You can’t be sure.”

“I’m sure.” 

Emil didn’t know how much battery the laptop had left; he didn’t know if it really would remain on when Jia-Long fell asleep, but that didn’t matter. Jia-Long took comfort in Emil’s surety. He admired his boyfriend who was sitting there and being so strong for him. Emil looked weak, but he was the strongest person Jia-Long knew. He was the only one who could bring Jia-Long back from the depths of his dark, invented hell. 

“Alright. I believe you. But if the computer shuts off before I sleep, then you better be on the first flight over here.” 

“I promise,” Emil said with a small smile. “So what do you want to talk about?”

Jia-Long shrugged, but the conversation quickly picked up again. They talked about the weather in their countries, some of the new music Jia-Long discovered, their favorite tourists attractions in Iceland, their strange friends and even stranger families, and anything else they could think of. 

As they spoke Emil’s soft voice lowered and lowered until it was barely even a whisper. He could see Jia-Long slowly begin to drift off. The Asian’s words jumbled together, and he worked hard to keep himself awake so he could keep speaking with Emil. Sleep was pulling at him, though, and Emil wouldn’t let him deny it. 

“Good night,” he whispered. 

“Good night….” Jia-Long muttered, clinging to his sheets, imagining they were Emil himself. He called to him one last time, telling him “thank you” for everything he had done for him. His last thought as he went to sleep were the words Emil told him that instantly relaxed him: 

There’s nothing in the dark that wasn’t already there in the light.  


End file.
